After an eight-year absence, Lucky supermarkets are returning to the Bay Area.

They won't be new stores, built from scratch. Instead, the area's 72 Albertsons grocery stores will switch names, adopting the Lucky brand.

The change marks the latest twist in the stores' long and complicated history.

The Lucky chain of supermarkets started in the Bay Area in the 1930s and eventually spread as far as Florida. But in 1998, its parent company was purchased by Albertson's Inc., a chain based in Boise, Idaho.

Down came the Lucky signs. Up went Albertsons.

Then last year, Save Mart Supermarkets bought 130 Albertsons stores in Northern California and Northern Nevada. Save Mart put its own name on the Albertsons stores in California's Central Valley.

But Save Mart, based in Modesto, wasn't well known in the Bay Area. Lucky was and still is, according to Save Mart's research. The company decided to revive the Lucky name in the Bay Area rather than use its own.

"The Lucky brand still has a really strong connection with consumers," said Save Mart spokeswoman Stacia Levenfeld. "It made sense for this area."

Although the names will switch, the store personnel won't.

"Anyone employed in an Albertsons store today will be in the Lucky store," Levenfeld said.

Most of the products will remain the same. The Albertsons in-house brand will disappear, however. So, too, will the Albertsons shopper-rewards card.

Prices on many products will drop, Levenfeld said, and shelf tags will show the difference between the old and new prices.

In addition, Save Mart will bring back some of Lucky's practices. In the old stores, for example, managers would open another checkout aisle whenever lines at the cash register passed three people. Known as "three's a crowd," that policy will be revived in the renamed stores.

Each store will be closed for two days to convert the signs, inside and out. Eight Bay Area stores will change each week, and none will be closed over a weekend. The aisles will not be rearranged, so shoppers should be able to find products in the same places as before.